1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a binding machine for use in binding edges of sheets together to form a booklet or pamphlet, and more particularly, to a manually operated apparatus for assembling sheets to be bound by a strip of pressure-sensitive adhesive tape.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The prior art provides many systems for binding sheets together and for binding sheets into signatures and binding the signatures together, but the prior art also provides a teaching of shingling one edge of a stack of sheets such that the sheets may be bound together by a sheet of cloth or other binder utilizing a glue or other suitable cementing material, a thickness of cheese cloth being inserted between the binder proper and the glue with the result that the extreme end of each sheet and a short section of the sheet adjacent the underside will be adhered to the binder. Such a construction is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 848,680, issued Apr. 2, 1907.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,765,194 illustrates a manner of fastening sheets together utilizing a pair of blocks between which a stack of sheets are clamped and then the stack may be flexed about a rounded edge of one of the blocks to fan the ends of the sheets into a stepped relation. The ends of the sheets are then bound together by a thin or frail material such as Japanese tissue upon which a gum or other adhesive is spread to bind the paper to the ends of the sheets in the fanned position.
Thus, the prior art provides the teaching of fanning of sheets and applying an adhesive material to the ends to bind the sheets together. When the patents referred to above issued no tapes were available having a pressure-sensitive adhesive of the type which would be desired to use in such a binding process for ease in binding, but, to anyone skilled in the art today a teaching exists therein to fan the sheets and apply to them a strip of material having a suitable gum, glue, or even a pressure-sensitive adhesive. The difficulty however is in developing a tape which is pliant to contact the adhesive to each sheet and in providing a novel device which may be utilized with various numbers of sheets to permit one to readily bind the same into a booklet or pamphlet in a manner which will provide a neat appearing document for purposes of presentation of the material or to merely file or store the material such that it may be retained together simply and easily. That is not taught by the prior art.
The device of the present invention provides a device which is very simple to use and will readily offset the edges of the sheets evenly and sufficiently that one can bind the sheets together and form a neat appearing book. The binding apparatus of the present invention does not utilize any separable parts which are assembled or disassembled to properly offset or shingle the sheets for binding.